Facts & Fiction Bohemian Rhapsody Movie

Bohemian Rhapsody Movie Facts & Fiction – Is This The Real Life ? or Just Fantasy

This video is not setting out to criticise the movie but create a discussion about the things die hard Queens noticed

In this video we look at the facts and the fiction of the Bohemian Rhapsody movie. the film did a great job of Of making a long story short. But had to play fast and loose with some of the facts surrounding the rise of Queens popularity

The beginnings of Queen seem to take place all in one night according to the movie where the reality is Freddie Mercury had known Brian May Roger `Taylor and Mary Austin for some time before forming Queen. John Deacon was actually the 4th in a line of bass players including Barry Mitchell Mike Grose And Doug Bogie.

The movie omits the first Queen album which failed to chart and only on a second album Queen II which spawned the hit Seven Seas Of Rhye.
By the 3rd album Sheer Heart Attack Queen recorded Killer Queen and Now I’m Here all while Brian May had a stint in hospital with hepatitis.

The movie also gives the impression Queen had broke up due to Freddie recording the Mr Bad Guy album. the truth is Queen never had a problem with solo project as Roger Taylor already had two solo albums out Fun In Space And Strange Frontier.

John Reid was never sacked and Freddie was never diagnosed with AIDS until 1987 after the Magic Tour Of 1986 and the Kind Of Magic Album.
1989 saw The Miracle Album where they agreed to share writing credits as was the case on the 1991 album Innuendo

The timeline of We Will Rock You, Love Of My Life Rio 85 and Fat Bottomed Girls has been well documented as being wrong

30 thoughts on “Facts & Fiction Bohemian Rhapsody Movie”

If you don't like it read the book don't they say it's always better you nitpicking bastards if you didn't like it don't go see it again they'll do fine just without you fangirls or fanboys get a life I liked it

James,I came across this comment about the movie, written for another youtube video. Very interesting points are made. I agree with what is said in it. Don't understand Brian's and Roger's motivation to paint certain things like they did…. I came out of the cinema with bad taste in my mouth…. Here is the comment:

" I have been a Queen fan for over 35 years and have always loved all the band members, but throughout the movie I had the distinct perception that with this biopic the underlying plan was to settle old scores and drag Freddie's memory through the mud. It is as if Brian and Roger have decided to rebrand Queen by sanitising their image at the expense of Freddie's. There are several published interviews with Brian saying that all of Queen were lost in a bad way during the Munich time (I think it coincided with the recording of Hot Space); Brian, Roger and John didn't quite attend parties with their wives and then left in shock when things got debauched. They were all doing drugs and living the dissolute lifestyle. The revisionist approach is obviously aimed at pandering to the more moralistic American audiences so that that the surviving members of Queen are re-framed as being the involuntary bystanders in Freddie's immoral antics – "y'all we were just family guys back then, it was Freddie who was the degenerate one". Really?

They should have come up with other ideas for the plot without having to resort to such low tactics. Malek was under-utilised and he was reduced to a parody of Freddie for most of the movie. Freddie was very masculine and had a piercing gaze, whilst Malek's grey eyes did not convey Freddie's this aspect of his commanding stance. Freddie was not super tall but he was taller than Malek (around 3 inches taller) and had more physical presence. All this was fixable by taking shot at a different angle and to make his jaw look more angular and make him look more imposing: notably the parts were he performed the early days concerts were excellent.

And as for the positives, there were a few moments in the movie where Freddie was portrayed in a way that was more introspective and I felt like I was watching Freddie's life in private, for the worst part it was paint-by-numbers portrayal of your typical rock star.

But the WORST part for me was where they made up that stuff about Freddie being the selfish one for going off to do a solo-project (Roger and Brian did it themselves years before Freddie did!). I very nearly lost it in the scene where Freddie begged the band to take him back. Those who don't know the truth will take this biopic as gospel and believe this since Brian and Roger were the executive producers. Cold calculation.

And why was this done? So that by belittling Freddie people will see Brian and Roger as the only legitimate heirs of Queen's legacy.

A lot of people who watched the movie as their first exposure to Queen will probably think that all there was to say about Freddie was that apart from his contribution to Bohemian Rhapsody he did little else and then went on to becoming a self-aggrandising, conceited Paki boy ( pointlessly wasted screen time rehashing the Paki slur) who was the only one turning up late at recording sessions. How about that lie about the writing credits? It was mostly Freddie's idea to share them and that happened after the Magic tour, when he was sick, because in the last days all he wanted was to create harmony in the band. And how about Freddie's contribution to songs he would never see come to fruition and who would make other people rich? I will stop here – there is a lot of fact-checking going on at the moment. Maybe all these fallacies have been intentionally placed in the film to spur debate – could Rog and Bri be that cynical. What a let down though – can't believe a true Queen fan could enjoy this deplorable film"

Interesting. You do know your stuff. Read somewhere that a different band member backstage at Live Aid stated "Freddie just stole the show, didn't he?" Have you heard that & if so, which band & who would it be?

Absolutely love the film, seen it 3 times, but still amazed at the number of inaccuracies especially given Brian and Rogers input into the film. I’ve had to explain to a number of people that Queen DIDN’T break up when Freddie did his solo albums, and that Queen didn’t finish with Live Aid! But hey, hugely entertaining film

I loved the film. It was brilliant and nothing you said was really serious to the storyline. Just glamourized it a bit and made it more impactful. They might make a Bohemian Rhapsody II – now that would be a hit also. Can you imagine the second film would cover post Live Aid… to his death.

Wow is there anything that was real about the movie… I saw it last night I had high expectations .it just felt like a lifetime movie with great acting. I thought the cast was amazing . I think I would have enjoyed this the same if I would have rented it on a dvd with that said we miss ya Freddie u r the greatest

Really enjoy all your knowledgeable videos man. Really surprised you like the film so much. I appreciate the need to trim the story and move things around to adapt to the screen but IMHO it hugely, HUGELY oversteps that line. Several points I could mention, but even just this one issue – the LIE that Freddie abandoned the band for years to go solo, thus breaking up the band and begged to be taken back! You and I know that's a complete lie. And I mean a lie. It's not a "timeline adjustment" of something that DID HAPPEN, just at another time, this is a complete fabrication of something that never happened at ANY time. Not even close. It's laughably untrue. It doesn't even have the (weak) excuse of being in any way necessary to the plot. Its an active choice that's been made to lie to paint Freddie in a negative light. No dressing that up for me I'm afraid. So when this is the official movie with Brian's input and blessing, that everyone knows will be taken as gospel by millions, I think that's at minimum utterly, utterly inexplicable and more realistically unforgivable. BTW – I am a big, big Brian supporter, absolutely no Freddie fanboy whatsoever I just know bullshit when I see it.

A couple of thoughts about the movie:-I loved the movie for what it was, but I was bothered by the inaccuracies. I was prepared for them but they stretched the truth or outright lied in some parts, but I understand why they did it. The Live Aid scene was AWESOME and really made the movie.

-My biggest complaint is they rushed through what they covered which again is understandable, but it doesn't tell the real story of Queen or Freddie Mercury. You could tell they had a lot to cover in 2 hours so they had to keep things moving along to accomplish their goal.

-Brian and Roger got their wish in the movie scaling back Freddie's wild ways, which I was OK with even though it didn't tell the whole story. There's a lot of docs and books out there that detail that side of Freddie so if one wishes to explore that they can with ease.

-As long as you go in realizing it's not a documentary you'll enjoy it. I'm going to see it again for sure.

Well I found the film an entertaining watch, and I can put aside the reworking of timelines of releases etc, but I did find one point unacceptable and reprehensible! When Mary goes to visit Freddie in 1985 as she is worried about him, she tells him of her pregnancy (which actually didn't occur until years later- her first child Richard was born in 1989 !) and Freddie is shown to behave like a spoilt jealous brat with his nose out if joint (albeit briefly) According to Peter "Phoebe" Freestone, who knew the great man about as much as anybody could know this enigma, Freddie was always thoroughly supportive of Mary's relationships, and her boyfriends were always included in invitations, and he was delighted and very supportive of her pregnancies! Why did Brian May and Roger Taylor allow this view of their friend to be depicted? To the many, many viewers of the film who do not know Freddie as we know him, they are left with this untrue, unsavoury notion that he behaved like a jealous brat. Freddie was by no means perfect, we know, but this story simply isn't true. Not a very nice way to memorialize their friend! 😕

I don't play guitar, but I LOVE Queen and I think you have excellent insights. 🙂

As for stuff you may have missed, I'm like 99% sure that U2 is coming down from offstage at Live Aid as Freddie is coming up (tho I didn't think those 2 played that close together). Also, without getting too spoilery, the um…. window breaking incident in the film obviously didn't happen but actually if you look on youtube somewhere John Reid has a funny story about Freddie which is similar.

I loved the movie, will definitely see it again, will definitely get the bluray. However, having seen lots of interviews and anecdotes about the band I feel like they should have used more "true story" stuff than they did. Also the Death on 2 Legs story would have been great to see. More on all the band members especially in the early days would have been great to see, more on making the songs would have been great too. However, I understand they have have to keep that within a certain format and time frame, and I wouldn't have wanted them to remove any of the music to do it. So here's hoping for an extended bluray that expands on some of that stuff. It certainly looks from the trailers/behind the scenes stuff and some info from the cast like there is a lot of stuff that didn't make the theater version. For instance, it was mentioned that they did "39" live in Japan (I think it was), so hopefully some of that will be available on the dvd/bluray somehow. One of my favorite songs.

Btw, speaking of interesting Queen stories not included. I dont think they said anything in the movie about Brian's guitar and that story? Am I wrong? Did I miss it? How could they not include the story of the "Red Special?"

I found the movie a very emotional experience-the first time Freddie's voice came out of those speakers at the beginning just brought tears. Thanks to a video of Paul Freestone talking about the film and script-not being a documentary-things were condensed-re-arranged-so I was ready for it not to be accurate. I do think if you don't know a lot of Queen's history-you might enjoy it a lot more on first viewing. I do not like them changing Freddie receiving his AIDS diagnosis and telling the band before Live Aid. I think it changes the whole dynamic of what they did at Live Aid-kind of a last hurrah instead of showing Queen was far from finished-that they were something special together rather than as separate artists. But at the same time I can see wanting to fit his AIDS reveal and the moment he told the band but wanting to end with Live Aid-I suppose if they would have had the Magic tour to end at Knebworth Park would have added almost another hour. I was a little surprised there was no mention of Montreux and their buying the recording studio-since it was there that Freddie found peace-especially towards the end of his life-part of the reason his statue overlooks Lake Geneva. But there is no way you can get everything from pre-Queen and Queen in a 2hr15min movie. I thought the performances were good and as good as Rami Malek was-I think he missed a lot of Freddie's playfulness and his sense of humor-just look at the interview with Paul Wigg and countless others-he was really funny-but as a tribute to Freddie-I thought it was a great performance. A lot on the trailers isn't in the movie which always make me mad but I walked out happy and a bit sad because I think Freddie had so much more to give. And I wish for The Show Must Go On they would have run that video over the end credits..but my quibbles are so minor. It stands as a beautiful tribute to Freddie and Queen-not very deep-but if you care enough-there are plenty of documentaries and books to read. One of my favorites is Mercury-A Intimate Biography of Freddie Mercury by Lesley-Ann Jones. Any movie that could bring tears-joy-nostalgia–loss and more tears-it's done a good job.

Didn’t like it! I’m a super Queen fan. I just couldn’t wrap my head around Rami being Freddie. As you said, the whole time line was not accurate. One point that stuck me was the way they had Freddie talking to his parents. From everything I’ve read and heard, Freddie was extremely respectful of his parents, thus, not walking out on them, or dismissing his family when he said”there’s no looking back.” I think Rami did the best job that he could, but did it “nail” Freddie. There’s so much more that struck e. Not going to post it here bc I don’t want anyone to think I’m knit picking. I will definitely go to see it again, to see whether I’m overreacting. Thanx for this video. Really appreciate it.

the way Jim Hutton and Freddie met was different in the movie than in real life (they met at a club and then a year later they met again and thats where their story started), but all the changes I think were understandable I loveeeed it !!

I loved the film, my only issue was that the beginning of the film felt a little rushed in the sense that they tried to put too much information at the beginning (there was no development in my opinion of the beginning of the beginning.). Other than that I felt it was great.